One of the learnings that we had is the importance of having a good record keeping system and especially a good cloud accounting platform. Part of being part of the job keeper system requires you to project your monthly ahead turnover and report your monthly figures.
I've found that if you're already using an accounting package like MYOB, QuickBooks or Xero, or any of the other number of accounting packages out there, with access to real time data such as bank feeds that being able to get in quick access to your figures has been relatively straightforward and you'll be able to share that information directly with your accountants.
If you have a manual record keeping system and you're not benefiting from the cloud, getting projections and getting your actual turnover has been a challenge for many businesses. I think that one of the learnings from this crisis is that getting a cloud accounting package is not just important for the sake of making it easier to do your tax return at the end of the year or lodge your BAS with the accountant; it enables you to get real time information about your business. It's become so important because of JobKeeper to be able to do monthly rather the quarterly reporting which traditionally most small businesses would never have even dreamed of. It is no longer cost prohibitive to be on the cloud. So that's an opportunity that I see coming out if you're not yet ready for that speak to your accountant, speak to your bookkeeper, speak to whoever you talk to you about something in place so that you can have the benefits of real-time information so you can make better decisions.
That will also put you in good stead for the next period of our lodgements which is your June quarter BAS, the next Cash Flow Boost which will be provided government stimulus (Round 2) will be administered through lodgement of you or June quarter business activity statement and obviously the quicker you collate all the information and get that through to whoever lodges it for you and lodge on time, the quicker your business will benefit from that second round of funding, which could be the difference between business success or failure, or being able to carry on.
I think a lot of a lot of the learnings from the Covid19 crisis can come from having a good system in place and being prepared for the next round of lodgements because so many stimulus packages are linked to lodgements.